[BIP-610] Enable ETHx / wstETH Gauge [Arbitrum]

BAL Gauges
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PR with Payload

Summary

The purpose of this proposal is to enable gauge creation for the ETHx/wstETH pool on Arbitrum

References/Useful links

Protocol Description

ETHx is an ERC-20 token by Stader, a non-custodial liquid staking platform with $650Mn+ TVL across Ethereum, Polygon, Bnb, Hedera… ETHx represents staked ETH; that appreciates in value over time due to the staking rewards and is represented in the exchange rate. Created to improve accessibility & support decentralization of Ethereum by allowing anyone to spin up a validator with just a 4 ETH bond (the lowest in the industry and 80% lower than solo staking), ETHx is currently at $400M+ TVL (130K ETH) across 4,000+ validators spread over 250+ Node Operators

stETH is a rebase token by Lido that also represents staked ether but instead of the exchange rate accumulation method, the staking rewards are given as extra stETH. Effectively, stETH always stays pegged 1:1 with ETH and stETH token balances are updated when the oracle reports the change in the total (initial deposit + staking rewards) every day. wstETH is the wrapped version of regular stETH which allows for stETH accumulation in the contract and turns the rebase model of stETH into the C-token model of other LSTs

Motivation

As an LST player, Stader is always on the lookout for more avenues to improve the liquidity depth in the market and it’s Arbitrum’s turn now. Driven by cheap gas & faster execution, L2s are the perfect avenue for DeFi and Arbitrum is slated to hold it’s pole position amongst L2s; courtesy of the huge user base. Stader intends to capitalize on that growth trajectory and expand its current set of Balancer pools to Arbitrum to access the massive base.

Specifications

  1. Governance: Stader’s governance is led by the Stader DAO - a wide variety of $SD holders who participate in key decisions pertaining to the protocol. Here are the Stader Governance Forum & Snapshot

    ETHx has an Oracle Node Operator Genesis Committee of 7 distinguished community members composed of top validators and esteemed Ethereum community members. You can learn more about the ETHx ONO committee here

  2. Oracles:

  1. Audits: Stader’s audit reports from Sigma Prime, Halborn & Code4rena can be found here

  2. Centralization vectors: Stader is a non-custodial & decentralized liquid staking solution based on DAO governance. $SD is Stader’s native governance token. ETHx is based on the foundation of decentralizing Ethereum with permissionless node operators getting the majority of the TVL

    The ETHx contract upgrades are managed by Admin time-lock contract with a 6 on 9 Multi sig (2 Stader members and 7 external members) as the proposer. Composition of the committee can be found here

    You can learn more about how Stader envisions embracing the path of decentralization here

  3. Market History: ETHx, like all of Stader’s prior LSTs went live with redemptions enabled from Day 1. So, the ETH is not locked and can always be redeemed by unstaking & withdrawing on Stader Dapp anytime which ensures the peg at all times and can be observed here

  4. Value: This is a Core Pool which will generate revenue for the DAO via the ETHx yield and through swap fees once the pool scales to a considerable TVL that can drive substantial trading volumes

Technical Specifications

The Balancer Maxi LM Multisig eth:0xc38c5f97B34E175FFd35407fc91a937300E33860 will interact with the GaugeAdderv4 at 0x5DbAd78818D4c8958EfF2d5b95b28385A22113Cd and call the addGauge function with the following arguments:

  • gauge(address): 0x058059cb764a98c18B937222eD06C1ad2f174Dce
  • gaugeType(string): Arbitrum
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